This one story should chap old Marines butts no end.
In these changing times of a truly co-ed USMC there is a decision being weighed by the leaders…..
The Marine Corps is considering a plan in which it could close its two existing boot camp locations and funnel all recruits to a new base where men and women would train together.
Marine entry-level training is a long way off from being able to meet a congressional mandate to make its East and West coast training bases both able to support gender-integrated training in the coming years, the Corps’ top general said on Thursday.
That is leading the service to study the option of opening a third training base in a new location to which all new recruits would ship, rather than spending cash on construction projects at aging training bases.
“Nothing, the way we’re organized right now, lends itself to integrated recruit training,” Commandant Gen. David Berger said on Thursday. “If that’s our start point — and it is — we have to get to a place on both coasts, or at third location or whatever we end up with, that … there are male and female recruits around.”
Will they approve the loss of their beloved “boot camps”?
Next question with a chap ass quality is that there is female drill instructors headed for an all male San Diego…..
Men stepping onto the famous yellow footprints at the Marine Corps‘ historically all-male recruit depot on the West Coast will soon be greeted by female drill instructors.
For the first time ever, the female drill instructors could begin training men at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Commandant Gen. David Berger said Thursday. The move is part of a years-long congressional mandate the service is facing to make its entry-level training coed.
“All of our female drill instructors are on the East Coast,” Berger said during an event hosted by Defense One. “… We’re going to run a couple trials this wintertime actually moving drill instructors from South Carolina to San Diego [on temporary duty] and train recruits on the West Coast to see how this is going to work.”
Just mere weeks from all of us heading to the polls if we can still vote that is……some news sources are telling me that Biden has a huge lead….something I do not necessarily believe….they also said that Clinton had that lead in 2016….and look what we got for having that lead.
Then there are those Trump sucking sites that would have us believe that the race is closer than most of MSM would have us believe.
Then Gallup has a poll that thinks most Americans think Trump will win re-election…..
The good news for President Trump: His job approval has hit its highest point since May, Gallup reported on Thursday.
The bad news: His approval rating is 46%, while his disapproval rating is 52%.
But the latest Gallup poll included one fascinating finding.
“Regardless of whom they personally support, 56% of Americans expect Trump to prevail over Biden in the November election, while 40% think Biden will win,” wrote Megan Brenan in an article released by the polling firm. “Although majorities of partisans think their party’s candidate will win, Republicans are more likely to believe Trump will win (90%) than Democrats are to think Biden will (73%). Fifty-six percent of independents predict that Trump will win.”
I personally like the analytics that the site FiveThirtyEight.com gives us when they look at the election…..so for all those hard supporters of Biden need to keep their eyes on the Electoral College…..why?
Even if you’re not following the polls super closely like those of us at FiveThirtyEight, you probably know that Joe Biden has both a sizable and fairly stable lead over President Trump.
That’s, of course, due to the Electoral College, in which Trump has an edge this year.
Historically, which party enjoys an advantage in the Electoral College ebbs and flows; sometimes the Democrats benefit from it; at other times, the Republicans. But in 2020, the Electoral College is clearly boosting Trump’s odds of winning reelection.
That’s because the states that are most likely to decide the contest are somewhat more Republican-leaning than the country as a whole, as the table below shows.
“There are some good people on both sides”….remember when the president made that proclamation on the racists in streets?
They are not vigilantes that are there to help the police…..they are there to take action against people of color and their supporters.
Trump’s call for the Proud Boys and other armed far-right paramilitaries to “stand by” has finally shed light on the real threat of physical intimidation around the election, to add to the threats of cyberattacks and abuses of the legal system. His call to arms is also a reminder why calling far-right domestic terrorists merely “vigilantes” minimizes and even trivializes the threat, for several reasons.
A vigilante can be defined as “a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate),” or more broadly “a self-appointed doer of justice.” This very definition does not cover the threat or use of violence which does not uphold “justice” against “crime,” but actually targets people based on how they were born or what they believe.
The concept of vigilantism evokes a spontaneous community response to the failures of law enforcement, or “taking the law into one’s own hands.” But far-right paramilitary groups in recent years have functioned more as armed wings of fascist social movements, often with sophisticated weapons, training, and online propaganda. Defining them as “vigilantes” overlooks the organized, serious nature of the threat, even if they are so-called “lone wolves” inspired by these far-right
Donald the Orange has given the shout out to groups like the “Proud Boys” to “stand by”…setting the stage for the day after the election.
Members of the Proud Boys are rejoicing after President Donald Trump gave the far-right organization a shout-out and marching orders during Tuesday night’s nationally televised debate, heightening fears that the president is deliberately rallying extremist groups and stirring up white supremacist violence as part of his frantic effort to remain in power.
The Daily Beastreported Wednesday morning that one Proud Boys leader readily interpreted Trump’s comments as instructions to commit violence against the president’s political opponents. “Trump basically said to go fuck them up!” wrote Joey Biggs after the president told the Proud Boys, a group that openly embraces violence, to “stand back and stand by.”
“This makes me so happy,” Biggs added, a celebratory reaction that was echoed by members of the extremist organization on the social media and messaging apps they commonly use, such as Telegram and Parler. One Proud Boys member claimed Trump’s comments prompted a surge in “new recruits.”
The ingredients are there…..the simmering pot of discontent that could very well erupt.
As it did in Michigan….
“The allegations in this complaint are deeply disturbing,” said the US attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Here they are: that six people plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at her northern Michigan vacation home with the intention of trying her for treason. The Detroit Free Press reports the men’s pledge to “take violent action” against “certain government and law enforcement components” came to the FBI’s attention early this year via social media. Per a sworn affidavit, the group’s ideas ran from “taking” a sitting governor to “storm[ing]” the state’s Capitol Building and leaving with hostages. The FBI said four of the men were scheduled to meet Wednesday to “make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear,” per the AP.
Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta have been charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping; all are Michigan residents except for Croft, who is from Delaware. The Detroit News reports the criminal complaint unsealed Thursday in federal court alleges the men surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home on two occasions and talked about taking her to Wisconsin for the “trial.” At a June meeting in Ohio that an FBI source attended, Fox along with 13 others discussed “creating a society that followed the US Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” per the FBI. Says US Attorney Matthew Schneider, “We owe our thanks to the men and women of law enforcement who uncovered this plot and have worked so hard to protect Gov. Whitmer.”
Let’s take a closer look at those indited…..
There are six men named in the federal indictment charging them with planning to kidnap and murder Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. They face multiple charges that could carry life terms of imprisonment.
Now that I have filled in the gaps……let’s look at the situation more in-depth…….
Now to look at the players…the Azeris supported by Turkey and the Armenians supported by the West….let’s not forget that the nations involved were once satellites of the USSR…..will this lead to a confrontation between Russia and Turkey?
The “frozen conflict” between Armenia and Azerbaijan has turned very hot. What may seem to many Westerners a minor clash in a remote corner of the world actually has significant implications for regional security, energy markets and the ambitions of two problematic strongmen: Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
The fighting, which goes back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, centers on a small enclave of ethnic Armenians inside Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh. The mountainous self-declared republic (which is not even formally recognized by its patron, Armenia) has a population of 150,000 but is highly militarized. The Azeris lost control of the area in a conflict in the 1990s that cost 30,000 lives, and despite much saber-rattling have been unable to get it back though diplomatic or military means.
In my time at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I visited both countries several times. Dislike and distrust permeated the environment. The two defense chiefs at the time hated each other, and although both nations were nonmember partners with NATO (and had small troop contingents in Afghanistan), all that either man wanted to talk about was the duplicity and venality of the other. Unfortunately, each was accurately channeling the national view toward their neighbor in the Caucasus. Neither side seemed willing to give an inch, either literally and figuratively.
“While it is true that the leadership of Azerbaijan has been actively promoting bellicose rhetoric for the last 15 years, now the decision to unleash a war was motivated by Turkey’s full support,” Pashinyan told AFP. “Without Turkey’s active engagement this war would have not begun.”
Pashinyan also said on Tuesday that Armenia was willing to make concessions with Azerbaijan to end the fighting if Baku was willing to do the same. “Conflicts need to be resolved on the basis of mutual concessions,” he said. “Nagorno-Karabakh is ready, and Armenia is ready, to mirror the concessions that Azerbaijan is ready to make.”
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has previously stated that the fighting will continue until Armenian forces completely withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh. “Nagorno-Karabakh is our land. We have to go back there, and we are doing it now,” Aliyev said on Sunday.
Other heads of state have accused Turkey of driving the conflict, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In an interview on Tuesday, Assad accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of being the “main instigator and the initiator” of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
(antiwar.com)
This situation has the possibility of becoming a wider conflict that could suck in many Western countries as well as Russia…..but just what is Azeris fighting for?
But what, precisely, is the aim of the operation?
Azerbaijani officials haven’t said precisely what their strategic goal is in this round of fighting, but the scale of the offensive suggests that it is more ambitious than previous escalations.
Azerbaijani analysts say that the aim this time may be the recapture of one or two of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that Armenian forces took during the war three decades ago.
“I assume that Azerbaijan intends at least to retake control in Fuzuli and Jabrayil; [those are] the two main priorities for this campaign,” said Fuad Shahbaz, an Azerbaijani analyst, in an email interview with Eurasianet.
The only good news is that the two warring sides have agreed to a ceasefire…
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday. The two sides agreed to pause fighting while they exchange prisoners and the bodies of those killed in the conflict. More “substantive” talks over the disputed enclave are expected to start soon.
The announcement came after representatives from Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Moscow for talks mediated by Russia. According to Sputnik, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire after 10 hours of negotiations.
“A ceasefire has been announced, beginning 12:00 on 10 October, 2020, for humanitarian purposes for the exchange of prisoners of war and other detainees, and bodies of the dead, to be mediated in accordance with the criteria of the International Committee of the Red Cross,” Lavrov said in a statement.
…
The ceasefire announcement comes after the US, France, and Russia met in Geneva to discuss the conflict. The three countries co-chair the Minsk Group, which was set up in 1992 to foster negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
(antiwar.com)
A ceasefire sounds like a good start right?
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a Russia-brokered cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting Saturday, but immediately accused each other of derailing the deal intended to end the worst outbreak of hostilities in the separatist region in more than a quarter-century, the AP reports. The two sides traded blame for breaking the truce that took effect at noon with new attacks, and Azerbaijan’s top diplomat said the truce never entered force. The cease-fire announcement came overnight after 10 hours of talks in Moscow. The deal stipulated that the cease-fire should pave the way for talks on settling the conflict. If the truce holds, it would mark a major diplomatic coup for Russia, which has a security pact with Armenia but also cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan.
But the agreement was immediately challenged by mutual claims of violations. Minutes after the truce took force, the Armenian military accused Azerbaijan of shelling the area near the town of Kapan in southeastern Armenia, killing one civilian. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry rejected the Armenian accusations as a “provocation.” The Azerbaijani military, in turn, accused Armenia of striking the Terter and Agdam regions of Azerbaijan with missiles and then attempting to launch offensives in the Agdere-Terter and the Fizuli-Jabrail areas.
This region is an opportunity for the US to show they can lead still……but the question will be will it?
Several Democratic Senators, in the wake of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, are proposing that the U.S. impose sanctions or terminate all military assistance to Azerbaijan. Evidently, they blame Baku for the war. But while such resolutions may gratify the ubiquitous and deep-rooted moralism and desire to punish malefactors that affects the entire U.S. political class as well as interested domestic constituencies; this intemperate and misconceived move actually runs counter to U.S. interests. Indeed, it would only confirm Azeri and Turkish suspicions that there is no understanding in Washington concerning the Caucasus and thus no reason to pay attention to this gesture of frustration or to anything else coming out of Washington. Neither would it bring the parties to peace, quite the contrary. That decision would only lead them to seek patrons elsewhere and further estrange them from Washington while depriving the U.S. of leverage in the region.
Since crisis denotes opportunity as well as threat, this war actually behooves Washington to ponder the reasons for this outbreak of fighting as well as the fact that this war offers the U.S. an opportunity to get back in the ring in the Caucasus, advance its own and the belligerents’ real interests, and help bring about peace and legitimate regional order. First, we must dispute the widespread belief that we have no vital or important interests at stake here other than possibly the safety of energy shipments to Europe from the Caspian that traverse Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 1993 when this conflict began, Turkey raised the possibility of attacking Armenia to relieve Azerbaijan.
In Saner Thought 